"Direct Talk"

Our guest today is Fujimoto Yasushi,

the developer of an ultra-high-pressure washer.

Graffiti vandalism is a persistent problem around the world.

In many cases, those affected have little choice but to bear it.

Fujimoto's ultra-high-pressure washer is capable of

removing graffiti with ease.

Boasting strong cleansing power without the use of chemicals or detergents,

the innovative cleaning system is safe and eco-friendly.

The ultra-high-pressure washer is also being deployed overseas.

It helped remove graffiti from a palace in Indonesia.

How did Fujimoto develop this pressure washer?

And what drives his commitment to graffiti removal?

Graffiti refers to illicit markings in public spaces.

Some of it is considered "graffiti art" or "street art."

However, graffiti is first and foremost a crime.

And if the city allows this criminal act to go unchecked,

even if it is a minor offense,

you foster the sense that the city will turn a blind eye to crime.

And I don't think that's a good thing.

It doesn't matter how cool the graffiti looks,

you have to clean it up,

and let people know that the crime isn't going to go unpunished.

On this day, Fujimoto is busy at work under a highway overpass.

The organization that maintains the road hired him to remove some graffiti.

It covers a section of the wall about two meters high and six meters across.

Fujimoto washes the spray paint away with a steady hand.

In about four hours, the wall returns to its original state.

Whether it's a concrete wall, store shutter, or a private residence,

he's able to make them look as good as new.

His cleaning apparatus consists of a compressor and boiler,

which are used to spray water heated to 140 degrees Celsius.

But it's not just hot water.

He also uses extra-fine baking soda,

composed of particles about a tenth of a millimeter in diameter.

The baking soda and hot water are combined in the nozzle as a powerful spray,

with the small particles essentially scraping the paint off of surfaces.

What's more, the baking soda is alkaline,

which neutralizes the acidity of paint to aid its removal.

Generally speaking, when it comes to removing graffiti,

the most common way it's been done is to use organic solvents

like paint thinner and benzine

to melt the lacquer spray paint and remove it.

If you melt it with thinner, naturally,

you end up inhaling fumes, so you feel nauseated and get headaches.

Meanwhile, with my method, you use baking soda,

which is a leavening agent used in food.

It makes bread rise and cakes spongy.

We use food-grade baking soda. It's safe to ingest.

Because all we're spraying is water and baking soda,

it's safe for the person operating the device,

as well as nearby people and plants.

Since Fujimoto perfected his apparatus in 2011,

it's been used to remove graffiti from over 500 locations in Japan.

Word of Fujimoto's services spread overseas,

and in 2016 he received a request to come to Indonesia.

He was asked to remove graffiti from a ten-meter stretch of wall in Jakarta.

I got the request via email.

At first, I thought it was a joke.

But I was also interested in helping out with graffiti removal overseas.

Fujimoto and his team worked in searing 40-degree heat.

Here's the result of two days of work.

Fujimoto also went to a palace built in the 18th century.

He was asked to help remove graffiti that had been brazenly sprayed

on one of the castle walls.

This was something built to be left behind for future generations.

To vandalize it was a selfish act

showing no regard for the people who made it.

This wall was restored in just one day.

For that job, I was approached by the Indonesian royal family.

They were so happy.

It was so hot working out there,

but seeing their reaction rejuvenated me -

made me glad to have gone all that way.

Fujimoto was born in 1970 in Otsuki, Yamanashi Prefecture.

His family ran an automobile sheet metal painting business.

Fujimoto learned the trade from his father.

When Fujimoto was 34,

his father died in a traffic accident.

Fujimoto took over the family business,

only to learn that it was burdened with debt.

Thirty-seven million yen in debt.

For about six months after I took over, my wife stuck with me,

but then all of a sudden, she asked for a divorce.

I think she couldn't come to terms with the fact that

we'd been saddled with this enormous debt essentially overnight.

Fujimoto was riding the train home after a business trip to Tokyo

when he saw something that shocked him.

From the train, I saw so much graffiti on the walls.

It was a shock. I couldn't believe my eyes.

It was like a mark of anarchy, and I was shocked to see it unaddressed.

Wasn't anyone complaining?

I immediately got the feeling that this was giving people trouble.

And then I thought, the graffiti is made using lacquer spray paint.

I'm always painting sheet metal for cars.

I think maybe I can remove that graffiti.

I thought that if I could erase it, people would be happy.

And what's more - let's be honest - I knew it could lead to more work.

Fujimoto spray painted a concrete block and began tests to remove the paint.

First, he applied the company's thinner.

I tried to wipe it clean, but it didn't work at all.

Instead of going away, the paint spread.

Concrete is like pumice. It's a porous material.

It has holes in it.

And as the paint thins, it seeps into those holes.

So it doesn't go away, it just melts.

Ultimately, I found that with that method it just took too much time,

plus your hands got chapped, and the fumes gave you headaches.

It became clear thinner wasn't right for the job.

Next, Fujimoto tried a commercial high-pressure washer.

Out of consideration for the environment,

he decided not to use any chemicals.

But the water wasn't enough to remove the paint.

Then he remembered something he'd seen growing up.

I remembered seeing my mother and other people around the neighborhood

cleaning burnt pots by boiling baking soda in them.

That's when it hit me that maybe if I used hot water to spray baking soda,

it would be effective in removing paint and residue.

Fujimoto bought a compressor and boiler, connecting them

so that hot water and baking soda were mixed together in the nozzle.

He tried blasting away the paint.

But the first tests were failures.

He realized the problem was the ratio of water to baking soda.

You'd think the more baking soda, the better,

but that turns out not to be true.

It was tough to figure out the perfect blend.

But our sheet metal business was slow,

so I worked on the washer all day, along with two other employees.

On the fifth day, we got everything fine-tuned just right.

It removed graffiti so easily we couldn't believe it at first.

With that perfect ratio,

Fujimoto had a highly effective cleaning machine.

He says using hot water helps create a powerful steam.

By heating the water with the boiler, it gets excited. It wants to get out.

You can cut through a daikon radish.

Here's a demonstration.

Fujimoto perfected his ultra-high-pressure washer in 2011.

Word of its unmatched cleansing power quickly spread

as he traveled around Japan removing graffiti.

Clients appreciated the fact that his method was eco-friendly.

He received an influx of inquiries - not just for graffiti removal,

but to clean the dirt off of exterior walls and water tanks,

to wash moss off of tombstones, and more.

The work even allowed him to pay off his late father's debt.

He says that the more graffiti he removed,

the stronger his conviction grew.

Often when we erase graffiti,

we bring up the gray paint underneath,

and when we blast that away, we find another layer of graffiti.

Sometimes it's three layers of graffiti.

The gray paint ends up becoming a canvas for more graffiti.

Then they paint over that with more gray, which leads to more graffiti.

Finally, they've had enough and give us a call.

Often when we remove graffiti, we find multiple layers.

We end up removing all the graffiti as well as all the gray paint.

That restores the surface to its original form.

And when you go that far, funnily enough,

recurrence is relatively rare.

So, what I'm trying to do is not so much remove graffiti as

erase all traces of graffiti.

After we're done with a surface,

I want it so people can't tell there was ever graffiti there.

Fujimoto says the reason he doesn't use chemicals

is because he wants to minimize damage.

He believes he can restore surfaces using only hot water and baking soda.

Restoration is my mission.

My hope is that by returning things to their original state,

I can contribute to the community, to society.

Hoping to get the apparatus into more people's hands,

he's hosted training sessions to teach others to use pressure washers.

In 2017, he founded the Special High Pressure Washing Association,

which currently has 25 member companies.

Fujimoto himself receives no royalties from the other firms.

People often tell me, if you'd kept this a trade secret,

you could have made more money off the technology,

you could've had a monopoly over the market.

People wonder why I go out of my way to teach others,

or to show the media how we do things.

I'm spreading the word that you can use a high-pressure washer,

baking soda, and hot water to remove graffiti.

I'm doing that to create awareness, to create a market for our services.

To that end, rather than try to keep the market to ourselves,

I actively teach others how to do this, how to do it right.

I want to help others and create a market.

As part of the Japanese government's plan to reduce disaster risk,

large-scale renovations of old concrete structures

are underway across the country.

Fujimoto's apparatus will be a key tool,

as washing the dirt off of surfaces

makes it easier to spot cracks and defects.

Concrete structures age, like people.

And structures across Japan are reaching the end of their lifespan.

But it's difficult to inspect concrete

when there's blackened dirt and moss and such accumulated on the surface.

You can't measure the length of cracks,

which means you can't measure how cracks develop over time.

Ideally, you want to restore the surfaces to just their base material.

That way, you can measure cracks,

and the next time you can see how much it's grown.

Then the person doing the inspection can decide

if it needs to be cracked open.

There's a responsibility to inspect concrete properly,

to provide peace of mind and security for the people.

That's not just true in Japan. It's true around the world.

(Do you have any words to live by?)

"The soil does not say, 'I made this flower bloom.'"

Flowers may be beautiful,

but without the soil, there'd be no flowers.

Yet Mother Earth never says, "I made these flowers bloom."

The soil knows that its calling is to make those flowers bloom.

Meanwhile, my calling is to remove graffiti and to fix cars.

Even if I'm able to set an example for young people,

I would never want to lord it over them.

I want to remain humble.

By doing that, I believe I can contribute to the betterment of things.